Also playing:
BEN HOWARD, BAHAMAS at Troubadour; WARREN G at Detroit Bar (Costa Mesa); HAIL!HORNET at the Satellite.
wed 6/6
Vinny Golia, Slumgum
BLUE WHALE
When Vincent James Golia Jr. founded Nine Winds Records in 1977, it was primarily a vehicle to record and promote his own works and those of his associates, but the label has come to symbolize the gradual and mostly hidden revolution in improvised music in Los Angeles. Golia is the right man to lead the insurgency. The former baseball player turned painter turned musician-composer is a charismatic, even iconic, rule breaker, and his long tenure at California Institute of the Arts has produced countless disciples who have bolstered his counter-mainstream brand of music. Those include the excellent band Slumgum, who open the evening as the first show of a monthlong celebration for the 35th anniversary of Nine Winds. The founder himself follows with a new work for woodwinds, strings and piano. Vive la résistance! —Gary Fukushima
Go Betty Go
HOWL AT THE MOON
When this Glendale-based, all-Latina pop-punk band first started making noise 10 years ago, they faced an almost immediate wave of classically misguided chick-band derision. Led by sisters Aixa and Nicolette Vilar and driven by Betty Cisneros' walloping guitar, the band's weeknight Mr. T's residency quickly evolved into a prominent spot on the Warped Tour and a blossoming national rep. Back in Tinseltown, despite the fact they simply played unadorned, straight-up, good old-fashioned punk rock, a weird, choking haze of smug, dismissive Kim Fowley–itis seemed to hover over them. Between the tide of green-eyed snide and the rat race of life on the road, lead singer Nicolette up and quit. Although GBG found a fill-in, things were never the same. Well, she's back for this apropos-of-nada, one-off reunion, and you know what? It should be a hell of a lot of fun. —Jonny Whiteside
Also playing:
DESTROYER, SANDRO PERRI at El Rey Theatre; CAPPADONNA at Detroit Bar (Costa Mesa); SOPHIA KNAPP at Bootleg Bar.
thu 6/7
Lazer Sword, Salva, Sodapop
LOS GLOBOS
While Los Angeles–to-Berlin producers Lando Kal and Low Limit may have moved on from the brutal bass and nasty noise that typified early Lazer Sword favorites such as "Gucci Sweatshirt," the pair still churns out tracks that ring with unusual immediacy. Their new album, Memory, glistens with Detroit-bred four-four bliss and '80s electro bump, while their flair for wild effects and moody atmosphere seems to owe to the panoply of contemporary British EDM. They revel in the details but aren't afraid to get lost in the moment, and a Lazer Sword live show is known to include an impressive degree of improvised tangents. Buzzing beatsmith Paul Salva has earned a name around L.A. and beyond for his eclectic productions, which combine soulful synth work with crunked-up percussion, hip-hop head-knock and experimental gravitas. His latest is a club-busting collaboration with producer Grenier fittingly dubbed "Wake the Dead." —Chris Martins
ECHO
While we're all familiar with the YouTube star–cum–songwriter sensation, few have parlayed it into a real career as well as New York's Julia Nunes. While she began as a cam video girl with a ukulele, Nunes has begun to blossom into a multi-instrumentalist of sorts, writing earnest pop pieces that will sit well with the date-night crowd. She's known for spinning tongue-in-cheek tales and quirky takes on pop perennials, but it's anyone's guess as to what her first national tour will hold. If her past performances are any indication, expect a jangly sing-along performance that's perfect for the coziness of the Echo. —K.C. Libman
TROUBADOUR
Much as KT Tunstall used to do when she was still a one-woman band, Swedish singer Theresa Andersson cleverly employs a loop pedal to surround herself with a variety of her own instrumental backing, including violin, guitar and dulcimer. Surrounded by a semicircle of pedals, Andersson creates a bewitching atmosphere, as her voice(s) and instruments cycle behind her while she claps her hands and merrily steps on and off various pedals with her bare feet to change musical directions. Based now in New Orleans, she infuses the airy pop songs on her latest album, Street Parade, with Crescent City rhythms and soulful adornments. Given her background and her current location, Andersson is a most unusual performer, and probably the only singer who has dueted with both Norwegian diva Ane Brun and N'Awlins kingpin Allen Toussaint. —Falling James
LARGO
Philly guitar savant Kurt Vile has a crusty, J Mascis–meets–Lee Hazlewood baritone and a Fugs-y sense of image and sense of humor both — between his impeccably deployed shreddery and obsessively iconoclastic production, you get moments of awesomely naked hilarity on songs like the anthemic "Freak Train," where Vile wedges apart verse and chorus with the reverbed declaration, "I ain't never been so insulted in my whole life ... SHIT!" Laugh it up, of course, but there's a special kind of goofy beauty there, too. This is for people who like a guitarist as much Thurston Moore as he is Charles Portis. Plus he's a perfect match for Michael Chapman, the similarly determined British folk-and-way-more wildman whose Fully Qualified Survivor LP was one of last year's most notable reissues. —Chris Ziegler
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